Kos Yoga, an Increasingly Popular Pastime

No many islands inspire as much as Kos. Yoga is an increasingly popular activity here, with schools popping up everywhere, and instructors offering lessons by the beach, in parks, in special studios designed for hot yoga, and so on.

Kos: Yoga on the Beach

Yoga benefits the body and the mind alike, and, with splendid views of the sea, the soul gets its share of wellness. You stretch and meditate on the beach, watching the infinite azure of the Aegean, taking in the breeze, and boosting your levels of vitamin D under the sun. Through breath-focused exercise and meditation you will become more aware of your surrounding, fully appreciating the healing powers of Hippocrates’s cradle.

Kos is famous from ancient times as the favorite place of worship for Asclepius, the god of medicine, and while yoga is not a Greek tradition, it is a practice that enriches and adds value to what’s already known on the island, because it promotes natural healing, just like Hippocrates did once in his famous Asklepion school. His main credo summarized:

human body functions as one unified organism, or physis, and must be treated, in health and disease, as one coherent, integrated whole

Hippocratic medicine had a strong focus on breath too:

Breath or Vital Force, and the Innate Heat, which were suffused into the blood from the lungs via the heart, gave the blood the power to sustain life.

For those who practice, yoga is a holistic approach to finding the balance between body and mind. Some yoga schools encourage yogis to find their own rhythm, others push to build stamina and strength, but regardless what style you practice, the aim is the same: balance.

Balance is vital for health and wellbeing. Yoga is one of those disciplines that treat your body as a whole, in line with Hippocratic ideals that originated on Kos. This is not to say that yoga and Hippocratic medicine are the same thing, but they do share more common traits than expected. These are the things that make Kos yoga a growing practice.